My car runs on vegetable oil

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 13 Sep 2005, 07:06

Ware a few ?peak oil? badges just in case they cut any reference to peak oil that you might say out

beev · Post by **beev** » 13 Sep 2005, 10:16

I agree that it's a good opportunity, but if you overdo it they will think you're a nutter.

Post by **mikepepler** » 13 Sep 2005, 11:59

Well, I'm planning to mention briefly that there's a lot of evidence that oil production will peak within the next 5 years then begin a decline, and that this is very serious and demands action. Then I'll say that's why I think what Futuretec are doing is important - it's a first step down the road of reducing dependence on oil. And finally I'll say I decided to put my money where my mouth was and get my car converted.

It's a shame there won't be time to go into anything like why peak oil will happen, what the effects will be, and why we can never grow enough biofuels for all of our current vehicles. The theme is fuel protests, and alternative fuel, so I have to fit into that theme I expect, and the peak oil bit will just be a brief sideline.

I expect I'll chat with them first though, and see what they think is most interesting to talk about - after all, they're the experts on that side.

In any case, I'm taking a few copies of some of the information leaflets off our website to leave with them, so maybe they'll be coming back to us at some point in the future.

I hope this all goes ahead - I won't believe it until I see it on the TV tomorrow, as there's any number of things that could prevent it from happening - maybe they won't even get out here from London if there's been too much panic buying of petrol!

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 13 Sep 2005, 12:43

all the best

Post by **mikepepler** » 13 Sep 2005, 17:37

OK, the filming happened!

Simon Gompertz was doing the interviewing. The theme of the article is all about veg oil conversion, and a lot of what they wanted me to do was talking about the system that's fitted to my car, so there wasn't a lot of space for Peak Oil...

...but - I did get a quick mention in about oil prodcution peaking and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. I just hope they leave it in, and that it sounds OK, as they have lots of footage so it would be easy to miss bits out...

The other thing I did was leave him with a few copies of some material from PowerSwitch, and the website details. He certainly sounded interested, but definitely falls into the "optimist" camp. I guess I'll wait and see if he gets back to me about it.

Anyway, the program (Working Lunch) goes out tomorrow at 12:30pm on BBC, so tune in and see if I make sense!

Post by **mikepepler** » 14 Sep 2005, 13:59

See it on the website here, up in an hour or so, but only until 12:30pm Thu 15th Sept.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/w ... efault.stm

Post by **mikepepler** » 15 Sep 2005, 21:04

Low-res clip is now on our own website, hi-res clip to follow:
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/in ... 1&Itemid=2

Post by **mikepepler** » 19 Sep 2005, 10:23

Medium and high resolution clips now available on:
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/in ... 1&Itemid=2

heinbloed · Post by **heinbloed** » 21 Sep 2005, 22:30

My congratulations to every one who has the courage to be one step ahead. Beev says : don't overdo it , they will think you are a nutter ....
Mr. Diesel had developed his motor to run on nut oil .That was walnut oil at the time , the Carters hadn't started their empire yet .
And using waste oil for fuel is much better than using it for animal feed . Aren't the " lepers of Europe " still using it as animal feed ? The less they have available the cheaper it comes for all of us I suppose ...
Entire fleets are running on waste oil , here is one from Germany , home of the nutters : http://www.tanklust.de/index.html

StephenCurran (Stef) · Post by **StephenCurran (Stef)** » 12 May 2006, 16:02

Hey Mike, how you doing?

Just wanted to ask you how the car was running and if you have any tips for somebody who was thinking about doing this themselves.

Cheers
Stef

Post by **mikepepler** » 14 May 2006, 08:44

StephenCurran (Stef) wrote:Just wanted to ask you how the car was running and if you have any tips for somebody who was thinking about doing this themselves.

The car is running fine. I think I've done something approaching 10,000 miles since fitting the kit, and on average I've burned about 60-70% veg oil, the rest diesel. I'll post some exact figures when I get round to adding up my log of all the fuel I've tipped in.

There are three reasons the amount of veg is not closer to 100%:
- Every time you flush the engine, that's about 0.6l of diesel dumped into the veg tank or left in the fuel system. As my car does about 14 miles to a litre, short trips mean you don't burn a lot of veg relative to diesel.
- In the winter, you need to mix 5-10% diesel with the used oil to make sure it doesn't go solid. If you used fresh oil this wouldn't be so bad. By the way, the "mixing" is simply done by repeatedly using the "flush" to dump diesel into the veg tank, just prior to filling - saves messing around with containers of diesel.
- In the winter, you have to flush if you're leaving the car parked for much more than 30 mins, especially if it's windy. Now the weather's warmed up I can leave it parked for 2-3 hours at least without flushing, so I use a lot less diesel.

Regarding service and MOT, I've had one of each since the system was fitted. My local mechanic (independent, not dealership, of course!

) was quite interested to have a look at it. The service was fine, tiny extra cost for my additional fuel filter. I imagine when it's time to change the cambelt the labour cost could be slightly higher, as there's more kit to move out of the way. When it was time for the MOT, I got them to run the particulate test on diesel and veg - it passed very easily on both, though diesel was a bit cleaner. He said that the veg emissions level was still much better than many diesel cars - I guess that's thanks to VW's clever design of the PD engines.

Tips:
- get one fitted if you have a diesel!
- check out where you can get fuel, there's various places around the country, or if you use enough you can get a 1000l tank delivered. Maybe you could share it with a neighbour?
- if you don't add enough diesel to the veg in the winter you get fuel starvation - this is a bit unnerving the first time, but on mine you simply switch back to diesel and the electric lift pump in the main fuel tank purges any air from the system and everything goes back to normal. You can then return to veg, and it's often OK as you just dumped 0.6l of hot oil and diesel back into the veg tank.
- if you store a lot of veg oil in the garage, try not to spill any as it attracts mice. I've had to get mouse traps as I don't want them finding their way into the house.
- if you store fuel for "emergencies" make sure you have some diesel too! I have between 70-140 litres of veg oil stored, depending on how recently I took a trip to buy more, and 20 litres of diesel.
- to be more oil-independent you could use biodiesel instead of diesel, but I can't buy it round here.

However, I'd consider putting some normal diesel through every so often to make sure the injectors get a good wash through. Maybe diesel with detergent additives to make sure?

Any other questions, please ask!

Post by **mikepepler** » 26 Apr 2007, 09:10

OK, aside from the moral issue of food vs. fuel, and whether we should be driving at all anyway, here's some interesting news:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/briefs/excise-duty/brief3707.htm

Revenue & Customs Brief 02/07 issued on 5 January 2007 invited views on proposals to reduce the burdens of the biofuels regime on non-commercial and medium-sized producers. Following this informal consultation as announced in the Budget, we can confirm that we will be introducing the proposed changes.

We proposed:

* A de minimis production level of 2,500 litres per annum below which producers would not need to enter premises, submit returns or pay duty

So if you are using veg oil to run your car, and use less than 2,500l a year, you pay no duty!

And what made them do this?
There's more info here which says:

When the biofuels scheme was introduced in 2002 there were approximately 25 - 30 producers. Since 2002 the profile and popularity of biodiesel has led to a gradual growth in the number of producers to the present level of approximately 1,400. A large proportion produce for their own use and make relatively small payments of duty.

So basically it's costing them more to process the paperwork than they get from duty payments, aside form the cost of policing it! So they've given up!

I must add though, that the rules have not changed yet. The change comes some time this summer.

Veg oil at 60p a litre, and a safe-to-store backup supply. Tempting, eh?

peakprepper · Post by **peakprepper** » 26 Apr 2007, 15:50

I have been following this for several weeks, and am glad they have finally seen sense.

When I rang HMC&E a few months ago, and asked them about duty rates, i was told zero duty /28p/48p in the same conversation by 3 different people.

I then asked them about duty rates for CHP unit for home use (just for a laugh, I knew it was zero -rated

) , and you could hear the panic in the poor bloke's voice.

When I suggested that they were making themselves look a bit stupid and uninformed for an official body who should be able to deliver concise and factual information to members of the public, I was put through to a supervisor who spent most of his time telling me how he couldn't wait to retire later this year.

On the positive side, this does mean I can now finish building my wvo centrifuge and start filling my 250 gallon IBC, which will fuel my Lister CHP plant and eventually run my diesel car.

Nice one Mike, thanks.

Kentucky Fried Panda · Post by **Kentucky Fried Panda** » 26 Apr 2007, 19:18

Does it smell of cooking when you drive along, the exhaust I mean?

Post by **mikepepler** » 27 Apr 2007, 09:35

Haggis wrote:Does it smell of cooking when you drive along, the exhaust I mean?

It actually smells a bit like what you get if you leave a frying pan on the stove with some oil in it and let it get so hot it starts to smoke.

More importantly - it smells a lot butter than diesel exhaust! And no SO2.

However, as I've said before, the food vs. fuel issue needs some serious consideration as a moral issue. I was initially burning waste oil, but then they stopped selling that at my local supplier, and switch to soya oil, which isn't even grown the in UK!

That supplier has now stopped altogether (they fell out with the company doing the conversions), so I've just burned up the last of my veg oil store... Once the new rules come in, I'll start using rape seed oil, which at least might have been grown in the UK. I'll also start investigating the requirements for filtering and dehumidifying waste oil myself, though I'm wary of breaking the engine...

My car runs on vegetable oil

Congratulations !